What Happens to Enquiries While You Are Away
Enquiries while away are lost more reliably than any other kind. Most Kenyan businesses slow down or close between Christmas and the new year. Almost none of them tell anybody.
So enquiries while away accumulate somewhere nobody is reading, and by the time somebody opens the inbox in January, everyone of those people has hired somebody else.
This is the most predictable leak in the whole set and the easiest to close.
The December Arithmetic
Two weeks is roughly four percent of the year.
Now consider that December is when many Kenyan buyers finally have time to organize things they have postponed. Weddings, renovations, business planning, and medical appointments—they kept delaying.
Enquiries while away are therefore not proportionate to the time. They are concentrated in exactly the period you stopped watching, which is why the loss is larger than the calendar suggests.
It Is Not Only December
The same failure happens in smaller versions all year.
A week at a funeral. A conference, or sick leave. Perhaps a staff member who left and whose email nobody redirected. Even a public holiday weekend where the phone was off.
Each one is a handful of inquiries that quietly went to a competitor.
Covering Enquiries While Away
Less than people assume. Four things.
Somebody named. One person checking inquiries once a day, even briefly. Not everybody, which means nobody.
Access. They need the login to the inbox, the form notifications, and the social accounts. This has to be arranged before you leave rather than by phone from a matatu.
A short reply they can send. Acknowledging the enquiry, stating when a full answer will come, and asking one question. They do not need to be able to quote.
A rule for urgent matters. What counts as urgent, and how to reach you if something genuinely is.
Tell People on the Website
The part nobody does, and it costs nothing.
A short notice on the homepage and the contact page stating your dates, when you return, and how inquiries will be handled in the meantime.
A visitor who reads that you will reply on the sixth of January will wait. Somebody who hears nothing assumes you are closed permanently and moves on.
Set your holiday hours on your listing too. Our post on wrong opening hours online covers the mechanics.
Set the Automatic Reply Properly
Most automatic replies are useless because they say nothing.
Include the date you return, the name and number of whoever is covering, what counts as urgent, and a reassurance that the message has been received and will be answered.
Send it from an address on your own domain rather than a free account, since an out-of-office from a personal Gmail reads as an individual rather than a business. Our post on business email on your own domain covers the setup.
Come Back to a Plan, Not a Pile
The second half of the problem.
Enquiries while away are frequently lost in the first week back rather than during the absence, because two hundred messages arrive at once and the genuine enquiries are buried.
Deal with inquiries first, before anything else, on your first morning. Reply to everyone, even when it is late, because a late apology recovers a share of them, and silence recovers none.
Frequently Asked Questions
How bad is the loss from inquiries while away? Larger than the calendar suggests, because December concentrates decisions people postponed.
What if I have nobody to cover? Check once a day yourself for ten minutes, and publish honest dates so people wait.
Should I close the website? Never. Publish a notice instead.
Does an automatic reply lose customers? A vague one does. A specific one with dates and a name holds them.
What about WhatsApp? Set a status and consider forwarding to whoever is covering.
When should I set this up? November, for December. Immediately, for anything unplanned.
Twenty Minutes in November
Enquiries while away are lost to silence rather than absence. One named person, one login, one honest notice on the site, and most of them survive until you return.
At Africa Web Experts, enquiry routing is set up so cover is a login change rather than a crisis. From KES 65,000, live in seventy-two hours.
